Residents of Gove Road, Dischinat Drive and Colonna Lane Thursday night presented a petition to Bushkill Township supervisors, asking them to establish a definitive plan to pave the remainder of Gove Road.

The petition, signed by 45 individuals, asks the board to include the road in its October road inspection and consider it a top road project priority for 1999.

The portion of Gove Road between Colonna Lane and W. Douglassville Road is one of four unpaved roads remaining in the township. The township began the process of adding the road to the paving list several years ago by placing drainage work on its five-year road plan. Now that the drainage project is completed, residents are asking the township to take the next step.

Supervisor Chairman Roy Shuman assured the residents that the board would visit Gove Road during its road inspection and take their request under consideration.

Shuman also agreed to circulate for board approval a draft of a letter to the Nazareth Area School District supporting the residents' request to add Colonna Lane as a bus stop.

Because the district's buses will not travel on unpaved roads, buses now stop at either end of Gove Road, and some children must walk more than a half-mile along Gove Road, a situation the residents believe is unsafe. Until Gove Road is paved, the residents are requesting that a stop be added at Colonna Lane.

In accordance with a suggestion Shuman made earlier this month, the residents outlined their safety concerns in a letter to Ross Nunamaker, the school district's director of administrative services, along with the draft of the support letter. Board members had said earlier this month that they would support the bus stop request.

But Shuman told the residents that the paving of Gove Road may not solve their bus stop concerns. While meeting with representatives of the district and the transportation company that serves the district, Shuman said, he learned that state law dictates that bus stops can be up to 1-1/2 miles apart.